3rd day of the 12 Days of Christmas Tags

Today I made a simple tag with a Christmas tree and a pigeon with a string of lights wrapped around it.

First I gesso the tag then heat blast it then paint a light coat with Tim Holtz distress paints, salted ocean.  Then added more gesso to lighten up the blue.

I'm don't draw well but I decided to draw a Christmas tree then painted it with 3 shades of green; light green, sap green, and phthalo green. On card stock I drew a banner and wrote MERRY on the flags, using different colors of glitter gel pens for each flag. I also put non colored glitter gel pen around the flags and string. I used a Faber-Castell black Pitt pen to outline the Christmas tree. Finally I set the wrapped penguin next to the tree. The penguin is from my stash, I've had it a long time. It looks so cute!

Copy doesn't make perfect! Dyan Reaveley's journal block technique.

Copying another artist work doesn't always go well. I didn't copy her work per say but a technique she used. I'm talking about Dyan Reaveley, and her use of the journal block. I don't have one but I make my own copy but cutting a manila folder as a template In Dyan's journal, she cuts the borders of a couple of pages with the block in graduating lengths.

As you can see I tried to be clever and didn't cut each page the same. There really isn't any theme to each page, I just let my muse take over.

 On this page I think I mainly used Tim Holtz distressed paints, twisted citron, fossilized amber, and mustard seed, and salty ocean. I used the butterfly stencil from Faber-Castell. Doodled with black and white Pitt pens. I also used some ordinary acrylic paints.

On this page the background is in Tim Holtz distress spray stain, cracked pistachio, mermaid lagoon, and abandoned coral. The pages didn't have a gesso prime on them so the sprays really absorbed into the paper. I also used Faber-Castell gelatos, blood orange from the Diner collection. To color in the branches and leaves, I used a brown Pitt pen, white and green gelly pens.

This is my favorite page with the background of Faber-Castell gelatos metallic(silver ice, iced rose, and squid ink) and Ranger's yellow liquid pearls.  For the ocean, I used various markers too. I need to write these down while I'm creating! I drew the fishing boat and the birds with a black Pitt pen. I love this page that I didn't have the heart to write on it.

This page was in honor of the Great American Brew Festival that is held every year in Denver, Colorado. I cut out images from a post card for GABF and their logo from the Internet. I had some business cards and stickers from those breweries and bottle caps lying around. I can't remember what I use for the background but I do know I used white gesso to prime the pages. I used Tim Holtz Ideology rubs, which I came to realize I don't like using them. It's really difficult to get the imaged rubbed right.  I stenciled the GABF with individual letters. Stamped with clear stamps from Inkadinkado. The stamps were on sale from the planner aisle at Michaels.

It turned out pretty good for trying our something new. I'm still new to art journaling so I try to keep track of the art supplies I used.

It's Sweater Weather, first day of Fall.

I have been walking around the neighborhood and notice that Fall is here. So I did this art journal page with the season it in mind.

Here I used Tim Holtz distress paints, mustard seed, barn door, and fossilized amber.  I used black archival ink from Ranger to stamp the dandelion seeds from Stampendous. But I though it looked too bright, I used white gesso to tone it down.

I had an old napkin from a Thanksgiving dinner that I cut up some individual leaves which I glued down. I also cut strips that were glued as a border.   I had cut up some pictures from a magazine and one piece got glued by accident so later I cover it up with Aspen tree leaves and various leaves I found on the Internet.

I also drew in some Aspen trees using white acrylic paint and a black Pitt pen to add detail. I then added my phrase and added some shadowing with a brown pen from Prismacolor.

With today the first day of Autumn, it will become sweater weather soon enough.